Ukraine; was Re: I say Myanmar, you say Burma

[Paul Johnston]

As I recall it, Bulgarian does, though it's suffixed, as in many
Balkan languages.

Yours,
Paul Johnston
On May 7, 2008, at 3:34 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Ukraine; was Re: I say Myanmar, you say Burma
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------
>
> At 1:51 PM -0500 5/7/08, Dan Goodman wrote:
>> Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Yes. In Russian, "kraj" (pronounced like English "cry") means
>>> "edge, border, and "u" means "at." So: "at the border."
>>> But I don't see the difference between thinking of the country as
>>> "The
>>> Border Land" ("The Ukraine") vs. simply "Border
>>> Land" ("Ukraine"). Why
>>>  is "The" so important here?
>>
>> What seems likely to be:  They overestimate how important it is in
>> English.  If I recall correctly, at least some Slavic languages don't
>> have direct equivalents of "the."
>
> Are there any that do?
>
> LH
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org